(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attending the
2014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, met with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott (Thursday, 24 January 2014). At the start of their meeting, Australian Prime Minister Abbott told Prime Minister Netanyahu, "I daresay you had an interesting day. I want to stress the affinity of Australia to Israel and remind you that apart from Israel, Australia is the only country on earth that's had a Jewish person as Commander in Chief of the army, Chief Justice and Head of State." Prime Minister Netanyahu replied, "I'm aware of that and that's another reason for this great partnership, and I appreciate it and your friendship very much."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also met with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and told her at the start of their meeting: "I appreciate the fact that there's much greater balance in Norway, I think that balance and fairness is something that is good on its own, but also good for peace. One thing that has been demonstrated is that the Palestinian-Israeli question is not the core of the conflicts in the Middle East. The imploding regimes in the Middle East have nothing to do with Israel and the Palestinians. We have to solve our problems for ourselves but not because it will stabilize the rest of the Middle East. That's a bigger job."
Norwegian Prime Minister Solberg replied, "It's a challenging time in the Middle East, in a lot of areas, not just the Palestinian-Israeli question, but the whole region is in the way of big changes like the situation in Syria, the refugee crisis out of Syria. There's a lot of instability so any positive news we'll get of getting more stable and new development will be good."
On Friday, 24 January 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who thanked the Prime Minister for
hosting him in Jerusalem last month. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that their meeting was an expression of the advanced state of relations between them. He said that Israel wanted to further develop bilateral cooperation in technology and foreign affairs. Chinese Foreign Minister Yi said that pursuant to their meeting in Israel, he wanted to report that five joint committees had met and that matters had to be discussed in detail, especially regarding high-tech."
Copyright: GPO/Kobi Gideon